Bono Snubs Barry Diller; Anyone Else? (IACI)

Now that Barry Diller has
won his court case against John Malone, he's free to break up
IAC (IACI) into 5 pieces. The problem: Convincing investors that
those pieces are worth more than the sum of their parts.

Barry has been trying to get private equity guys to buy stakes in
some of his units, which would theoretically "boost investor
confidence,"
reports WSJ's Jessica Vascellaro, who owns the IAC beat so
thoroughly that her work became part of last week's trial.
Jessica says Barry had been talking to Bono and Elevation
Partners about buying a piece of Ticketmaster, but "talks have
cooled", though they "aren't entirely off the table."

Anyone else? Barry has also been looking for investors in
Interval, his time-share business, but that's looking dicey, too.
Meanwhile Lehman's Doug Anmuth notes that Barry may still end up
simply swapping out one of his companies -- perhaps Interval, or
the Home Shopping Network -- to Malone.

To recap: Barry Diller owns, among other businesses, a concert
ticket seller, a time-share business and buy-by-phone TV
retailer. And we haven't even mentioned his search engine, his
online travel agency, etc. Any wonder he hasn't been able to sell
Wall Street on his vision for IAC?